In the service of examining specimens such as blood and urine of patients, speedup in the service operations is demanded.
In particular, for urgent specimens (e.g., specimens for testing before diagnosis or for emergency cases), a target TAT (Turn Around Time), which is the time until output of an examination result after arrival of a specimen at a laboratory, is currently 20 to 30 minutes.
Automatic analysis systems which automatically perform operations of examining specimens each include: a group of devices for performing preprocessing such as centrifugation, decapping, and aliquoting; an analyzer group for performing analysis according to test items; a group of devices for performing postprocessing such as sorting, storing, and disposal; a transfer system providing transfer paths which interconnect the devices; a server managing the devices; a server managing test information; and an operations terminal for laboratory technicians (in charge of testing) to request testing, to manage test results, and to make settings of the groups of devices. The automatic analysis systems automatically examine various specimens inputted, according to requests for testing.
In addition, in the common automatic analysis systems, multiple inlets having different priorities are arranged in an input device through which specimens are inputted, so that urgent specimens inputted through the inlets having higher priorities can be processed in preference to the normal specimens.
However, in the time zones such as the morning of a new week in which many test requests are issued, congestion occurs, where the devices and the transfer paths are clogged with a lot of specimens because of insufficient processing capability of part of the devices. Therefore, the TATs of all the specimens including the urgent specimens greatly increase.
In order to overcome the above problem, the patent literature 1 for example, discloses a technique in which the states of existence of specimens in the transfer paths and buffers in the respective devices are monitored by use of sensors, and input of specimens is suppressed so that the transfer paths are not clogged with the specimens.